This week we talk about our experience with Portable Churches, worship and sound systems. We also talk about some of the things we’ve learned over the years in this area that might be beneficial for you if you find yourself in that environment!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

Don’t forget you can call and leave a voicemail message to be played on the show. Area Code 360 818 – 4339

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

In our 103rd episode, we talk about some of the basics that might help worship bands know the mechanics of Music a little better. We’re trying to help people get off the page, playing each chord as we get to them – and into the music.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We are finally back with a new episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast. Christmas really pounded the both of us, and that’s exactly what we talk about in this episode. We talk about Christmas, and we talk about how to recover from Christmas. We also talk about pizza!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

I hope our absence of content for the past month or so only reinforces who we are in your minds! As we have said all along, we don’t claim to know everything there is to know about Worship Ministry. We’re just a couple of worship pastors who want to share what we do know with the goal of helping you in anyway we can!

Since, I’m assuming, you’ve been busy too, I hope this post informs you that you haven’t missed anything.

The good news is that Kevin & I will be meeting this coming week to record a couple of new episodes of the podcast, so we will have one for you in the near future. Until then, listen to some of the old episodes if you need a fix!

Also, if you need something to do, we’d love it if you could like us on facebook!

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

In this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, David and Kevin talk about the concert that David had recently attended. The Steven Curtis Chapman, Songs & Stories Tour. As we say on the podcast, if you haven’t been to it, you should go! And there’s plenty of time to go catch a concert!!!

We also talk about the solution Keven & the guys from AGI came up with for their Subs and some other fun stuff!!!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

In this 100th episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst we talk about a lot of the great memories we’ve made over the 100 episodes of this podcast.

We specifically want to thank you for listening to this podcast for so long! We love doing this and we’re thankful for all the feedback we’ve gotten from you and your sharing with us how we’ve helped you in various ways. Just so you understand, we’re not experts. We’re just a couple of worship pastors just like you and we wanted to share what we know with you, in the hopes that it helps you do what you do better!

Thanks for all the listens and thank you for staying tuned and sharing the word about the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Not because of the political agenda, but for two other reasons. The first being it was an idea that got burned into the ground a few years ago. The times are different, the message should be too. But the bigger reason it drove me nuts was that they were stealing the advertising campaign of a very notable company.

It got me thinking, why is it that when someone comes up with a good, creative idea – it must then be copied thousands of times over until it has lost all meaning? Inevitably, that once creative idea becomes…cliche. Click to read the definition of cliche.

So someone had a really creative idea, and it became popular because it was a really creative idea. Then the rest of us lazy folk, just rip off their idea and apply it to our use however we can. Sometimes for good, often times for marginally related events or content.

What I’m saying isn’t new. It’s been said a hundred times before. But it’s fresh on my mind. I’ve been reading “Culture Shift” by Robert Lewis & Wayne Cordiero, as well as “Addicted to Mediocrity” by Franky Schaeffer which both speak to this issue. Culture shift deals specifically with church programming and not taking a program from another church and cookie cutting at your church. Franky speaks more specifically about art, and not being afraid of it.

I’ll be the first to admit, if I see a good idea from another church, I want to use it right away. If I see a cool commercial or a good movie, I want to use the ideas in whatever way I can. Often times we do use it. Mostly out of necessity. When you have to have good creative ideas every week, it’s much easier if you can use others’ ideas and just implement them.

Here’s the whole point. Borrowing ideas from other churches is good, and I would often recommend it. However, if you want to be really great, then use the creativity that God has given you, and create something specific for your community. Sure, it may not be at the same level as what others are doing, but it will be relevant. And, in my experience, Relevance Trumps Quality. Quality is very important, but if the message connects with people, they can overlook quality. But, if the message doesn’t connect, or is too abstract, no amount of quality can speak the content that is missing.

God has planted each of us where we are because he wants to use us there. Let’s spend more time on the hard work of creating and less time copying.

If we’re the first ones to use and idea, we will never be cliche.

In this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, David and Kevin talk about how to respond when difficult situations arise. If an amp goes down in your sound system, what do you do? If your lyric computer crashes what do you do? We’re not necessarily talking about your back-up plans for these situations, we’re talking about how you specifically respond as a leader in these situations.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

As you may (or may not) know, I’ve recently moved into a new leadership position. I’m in a position that hasn’t had a full-time person leading for quite some time. There were some part-timers doing parts of my role, but mostly maintaining what had been done, to no fault of their own. (Having just come out of a part-time role, I fully understand you can’t always be moving forward.)

What I’m experiencing is, in many ways, the various aspects of worship ministry have been drifting. That’s what happens when you have volunteer leaders over a part of the ministry, but no one over the whole. And, metaliterally (yes I just made that word up) I’m finding myself doing the splits.

However, that said, I’m extremely excited about the future of Worship Arts at the Vancouver First Church of God. But that doesn’t mean things are going to be easy.

I’ve found myself in some situations where I have to remind myself of this truth. Lead now or be led. I believe God has called me to this specific role at this specific church. And since I believe that, I also believe he wants me to be the leader of this ministry, otherwise He wouldn’t have brought me. I also believe that God has you in your role.

If my premise is true, that God has placed us in our roles, then we are the ones to lead. We can’t let the loudest voices lead, simply because they are loud and domineering. Loud doesn’t equal Lead.

Here’s the thing about all this. Every time we let someone lead us because their personality is stronger than our own we become the followers not the leaders. Hear me clearly, we are the leaders. That doesn’t mean we don’t have leaders on our teams whom we are training and empowering to lead, but that doesn’t mean we never lead. God has put us in our roles because He has a plan he want US to put in place.

Leadership is not personality. We cannot allow those with dominant personalities to lead because of their personality. They may be dominant, but they may also be dumb.

People need leaders, humble leaders. Since God has placed us in this role, we must lead.

If you’ve allowed yourself to be led for quite some time, but you must begin making choices and charting a path of leadership. It will be difficult, trust me I know. But you will be much happier down the road if you do it now. If you don’t, at some point down the road you will find yourself in a ministry that you don’t recognize. That’s because it isn’t your ministry anymore.

So, feel empowered. God has you where you are for a reason. He has created you and the church you serve. He has put you together for this time. So lead.

Lead now or be led.

Don’t get me wrong.

Evangelism is what we’re all about.

YES, we want to be relevant. I agree completely!

But….(and you knew it was coming)…..evangelism cannot ride on the back of worship.

We have to stop trying to make worship – evangelism. Worship is worship, evangelism is evangelism. I agree that a worshiping church is attractive to a non-believer. Far more than a non-worshiping church. I also agree that we want to be conscious of evangelism when it comes to worship. But, we as worship leaders, can’t allow evangelism to determine our worship.

We must choose our worship based on what helps our congregation worship, not on what we think will draw in the lost. Let’s be real, we’re not going to do music that they truly like anyway. Most of us don’t play songs from the top 40 in our worship services. Some do, but most don’t.

Two simple things happen when we try to combine the two:

1. Worship is Diluted.

God wants our worship. It’s that simple. When we try to turn evangelism into worship, it becomes less about worshiping God and more about attracting the lost. We want to be focused in our worship. God and God alone.

2. Evangelism is Marginalized.

When we’re trying to do worship and attach evangelism to it, evangelism becomes marginalized. We can’t focus on both. And, honestly, it becomes too easy to say that we as a church are doing evangelism, when in fact, all we are doing is worship.

Again, let me reiterate, Evangelism is what we’re all about. We have to be about reaching the lost. But, if we’re going to do evangelism, let’s do it all the way. Let’s design services and events around that purpose entirely. “Our people won’t go for that” you might say. “Lead them” I say.

When a service is a worship service, let’s worship.

(To hear more on this topic, check out episode 0093 of the podcast.)

Agree? Disagree? Why?

On this episode, David & Kevin talk the ins and out of doing auditions for worship ministry. We all have to do them at some point in time. We either do them before we let someone participate, or we let them participate as their audition (and sometimes regret we didn’t audition them first).

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

This week, David & Kevin talk about what we did in our churches to remember September 11th, 2001. We also talk about the struggle some churches face in whether or not to do things like this, especially when it comes to Patriotic themes.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

In this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast David and Kevin talk about some of the key things we need to do as worship leaders when we start leading worship in a new role/new church. In case you haven’t heard, David has started in a new position at the Vancouver First Church of God. And in this position, He really wants your advice on what he should be doing!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

This week we’re talking about two topics that come together as one. We are talking some about our Musical Heritage – honoring the people who have paved the way for us to be doing what we’re doing today, and we are also continuing to talk about the different formats of services that Kevin started talking about in the last episode of the podcast.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

August 13th and 14th will be my last weekend at Gateway Community Church in Washougal, WA. I have accepted a full-time Worship Pastor Position at the Vancouver First Church of God. (http://vanfcog.org/ – new website coming soon!) I will be overseeing all aspects of the Worship Ministry there including leading worship in the contemporary and traditional services, eventually leading the choir and other responsibilities.

It’s kind of like a Rubik’s Cube. Seriously. It’s that way for all of us. I’ve been working on this Toy Story Rubik’s cube that someone gave to one of my kids (Which I’m convinced is nearly possible to solve – listen to the podcast if you want to hear me rant about this….). I’m just talking about a plain old Rubik’s Cube. Some of us are red squares, others green, others yellow or orange. For the past few years I’ve been on one side of the cube, serving where God had put me. And for a time, we were all on the same page, all the same color. But, as is expected in ministry, things changed and shifted, twisted and turned  and God started preparing another side of the cube for me.

The big point of this illustration is not about the sides and being matched up with the right people and what not, though that’s a part of it. The real point is that we are all serving on the same block. The same Kingdom. The hand that twisted the cube to get me to Gateway is also twisting the cube to move me on the the Vancouver First Church of God.

All that to say, wherever you find yourself in ministry today, know that God has you there for a reason. And if/when it’s time to move on, God will also to the twisting and turning to lead you on from here to there.

In this episode of the podcast we talk about a lot of stuff. Since we’d been off for a while, we had a lot to catch up on. We do talk about some worship stuff though, so you’ll want to listen to this episode for sure!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

First, it’s not just a how-to book on achieving your dreams, it is so much more. He doesn’t say this in the book, but it’s really a book about how to lead yourself and the people around you to your dreams.

Second, it does give you some very useful ideas to help you zero in on your dream, figure out if you really believe in it, and to get you on the journey.

Third, he doesn’t tell you to blindly pursue your dream. A lot of times, it seems, people will just tell you to go after your dreams, regardless. Even if the dream isn’t good for you, or the people around you, or if you don’t have the resources of anything else required, they tell you to go for it. He doesn’t do that with this book.

But the real reason I wanted to write this post wasn’t to talk about the book, I wanted to remind us all that we are the “dreamers of dreams”. When it comes to the worship life of the body of Christ we are a part of, we are the ones that have to dream. God has put us in a leadership role for a reason, because He has a dream for the body you are a part of, and He wants to use you to accomplish that dream.

So often, it’s so easy to get into a rut. To just go with what works, and never try new things. To do what we know instead of dreaming up a new way to do what’s always been done. My charge to us is to get out of that rut. Let’s stop spinning plates and start dreaming dreams. Let’s stop this nonsense of keeping things going, and get things moving forward. Let’s stop doing the things that worked a few years ago and find the things that will work a few years from now.

The church has at it’s disposal the greatest source of creativity known to Man – the inspiration of a creator. Let’s allow Him to speak to us and give us the inspiration for what’s coming next.

We live in a Graphic Design World. And one thing that many graphic designers need/use regularly are images that are isolated. Let’s say for instance your Senior Pastor is doing a series on the Woman at the Well. And since you wear more than a Worship Pastor Hat, you also wear a Graphic Designer hat – You are asked to come up with the design for the series. So, you go to www.istockphoto.com and start looking for images, and find one you like: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-5768326-well-bucket-and-pulley.php?st=5861313

You decide you’re going to need the image for many different forms of media, the bulletin, the website, sermon slides, banners, urinal decals, etc., so you’re going to need to have the best resolution you can afford. And that will cost you 15 credits. Well, exactly how much is that? That’s $23.10 for one picture. Now, let’s say you need a cool, urban desert image for the background, so you do some looking and the only one you can find is the vetta image, and that’s going to run you some more, 70 credits. http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-11005445-autumn-night.php?st=f9cf393, but let’s just say it’s going to run you roughly the same amount, $25.00. So, you’re at $50, plus any other little things you need.

Here’s a break down right from iStockPhoto.com of their pricing. (http://www.istockphoto.com/buy-stock-credits-pay-as-you-go.php) Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t have a problem with iStockPhoto. I think it’s a great service, and for the caliber of image you get, it’s not a bad deal. But look at our image.

You can see, it’s not going to take long for things to get expensive. Of course, if you’re a larger church, you might have the budget for that. But, if you’re smaller, you might not. Do you have $100 to spend on each series throughout the course of the year? 8 – 12 series = $800 – $1200.

What if….

…you had the concept figured out ahead of time. Instead of using istock to come up with the inspriation for the image, why not figure out the concept ahead of time, a least a few weeks, and send some photographers in the church out to find the pictures you are looking for. If they can’t find them, I bet there’s someone in the church that has what you’re looking for, or someone who knows how to find such things.

One thing that might help, would be to purchase a little equipment for the photographers to use, that will help you in the long run as well, that would be a tabletop shooting background. You can pick one of these up for around $35. (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/347667-REG/Cloud_Dome_CDIB18W_Infinity_Board_Matte_White.html) Then, all your photographers have to do is find the item they will be photographing and use this to take the pictures you need. It might take a few tries to get really good images, but it won’t take long, and the money you save will be worth it.

Plus, you are developing someone in your church. You are using the gifts of someone God has put in your body. That’s good stewardship all around. And it’s worship for the photographer.

There’s not a whole lot to this. The biggest piece is the tabletop studio and some lighting, but, as you figure that out, you’ll be on your way.

One last tip: Check out http://www.creationswap.com/. It’s a place where Graphic Designers and Photographers put stuff for churches. I’ve even got a few of my own images up there for you to use. There is some really great stuff being done there, and it’s worth your time to see what’s there. You might even find something that’s perfect for the series you are doing.

Also, if you are an artist, graphic designer or photographer, I would encourage you to take part in adding to the community as well. The more who are putting stuff in there, the better the chances we will all have of finding what we are looking for. So, if your photographic team starts taking isolated images, put them up there. If you come up with a cool sermon graphic, put it up there. We’ll all thank you for it!

I also remember a time when music in church was much different than it is today, at least at most churches. We sang mostly old songs, we called them hymns, although I came to learn later that they weren’t all hymns. The songs we sang, are songs we had sung hundreds of times, my parents – thousands. They had been adopted as worthy by some church or churches somewhere along the line, and were added to they hymnal.

I also remember a time, when we would sing “choruses.” Once in a while in our Sunday evening service, Dad would pull out the over-head projector and we would sing “Choruses” like: “Behold what manner of love the father…” and “Jesus, Name above all names” among a few others.

I remember being at a church that was using a video projector to project the lyrics using powerpoint, white words on a blue background. And I remember one of the older pastors talking about a time before when we sang out of the hymnal instead of reading words off the wall.

I remember lots of changes for worship. In one way, the change is a testament to me. It shows that our worship is truly about Jesus Christ, and not about a form.

In other ways I worry. I’m sure my worries will all be proven wrong. But, maybe by drawing attention to my worries, I can help a few of us keep the focus in the right place.

We have a worship ministry, because we want to worship Jesus Christ, because we want to help others with gifts similar to ours – be able to use their gifts for something greater than self-glorification. We have a worship ministry because we want to be used by God to lead the Body of Christ each and every week to worship our Savior – Jesus Christ. We want to Lift High the Cross of Christ, and proclaim His love. And we have a worship ministry because we want the world to know how we feel about our Savior, and we want them to see how we worship at His feet so that they too can experience the redemption we have experienced.

We don’t have a worship ministry to do the latest & coolest things. Our job is not to find the most popular songs, that every other church is doing and implant them to ours. Sure, most of the songs we do are probably being done by other churches. But that isn’t a good enough reason to use a song.

We don’t have a worship ministry to make ourselves rock stars. We aren’t there to draw attention to ourselves, we are there to point people’s attention to God.

We don’t have a worship ministry to use the coolest and newest technology. There are many ways we have benefited from technology, Lyric projection, Mini-movies, loops, keyboards and keytars… We use technology as a means to an end. Technology is never the end. The use of video, in and of itself, is pointless unless it points somewhere significant.

We don’t have a worship ministry to Evangelize. (Gasp! You might want to listen to the latest podcast if you want to hear more about this.) Worship can be a catalyst for drawing people to Christ, but ultimately, that is not the point. The point is to worship the ever-living God. We humble ourselves, bow at his feet, surrender, give everything over to him as a sacrifice. That’s worship. Every single Believer is responsible to share the Gospel with the people God has put in their life. I’m not saying evangelism can’t happen, or even that it shouldn’t happen during our corporate worship. I’m just saying, that we don’t do worship to reach people. We do worship to worship.

We don’t have a worship ministry to keep traditions or to kill traditions. We don’t have a worship ministry because we want to keep something going. Likewise we don’t have a worship ministry to kill something that we think should have died. Again, those aren’t the point. They are not right or wrong. Worship is the point. If we’re not worshipping, that is wrong. If we are not leading in worship, that is wrong. If the point is to keep/kill a tradition, we’ve gotten off track.

We have a worship ministry because we have been set free, and our only response is to worship. We know we can’t earn the grace that’s been given to us, but we can worship the giver. That’s why. Whatever comes or goes, We worship because the chains of sin and death have been undone, So shall our song of triumph ever be: Praise to the Crucified for victory.

That’s why we have a worship ministry.

Broken people call His name
Helpless children praise the King
Nothing brings Him greater fame
When broken people call His name

Lift high, your chains undone
All rise, exalt the Son
Jesus Christ, the Holy One
We lift our eyes to You

Sinners all exalt the Son
Your ransom paid and freedom won
We will see His Kingdom Come
When sinners all exalt the Son

Steve Fee “Lift High”

Led on their way by this triumphant sign,
The hosts of God in conquering ranks combine.

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,
Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

Each newborn servant of the Crucified
Bears on the brow the seal of Him Who died.

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,
Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree,
As Thou hast promised, draw the world to Thee.

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,
Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

So shall our song of triumph ever be:
Praise to the Crucified for victory.

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim,
Till all the world adore His sacred Name.

Words: George W. Kitch­in; mod­i­fied by Mi­chael R. New­bolt in 1916.

Music: Crucifer, Syd­ney H. Ni­chol­son, 1916

(Photo by Marian Trinidad courtesy www.creationswap.com)

Does Worship Evangelism work? Is it even a good idea? What do we mean when we talk about worship evangelism? Should we be doing worship evangelism? All these questions and more are the questions we talk about in this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Perhaps it’s second nature for you, but maybe for others it’s brand new. Today, we’re talking about planning a worship service and picking a worship set, focusing a lot on the flow of the service.

We talk about the “Big Three” things to keep in mind while planning a worship set: 1.) Theme 2.) Key 3.) Tempo. Of course we talk about a lot more when it comes to planning a worship set, but we do talk about these in particular.

If you’re new at leading worship this is a very hands on, practical episode for you. If you practice these three things that we talk about in this podcast, your worship sets will flow right away.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

In this article, I wanted to address the topic of choosing the team. There are a couple of issues to think about before you pick your team.

It’s hard to lead creative people. If you’ve never spent a lot of time with creative type, you may not know, but doing so can be an extremely difficult task. Sometimes, creative people wear their emotions a lot closer to the surface. Sometimes, they bury their ideas deep inside and you have to prod and pry to get anything out of them. Sometimes, they are offended easily if you don’t like their ideas. Sometimes, they are so personally tied to their idea, it doesn’t matter what anyone else puts on the table, it will not compare.

If this sounds daunting, perhaps you are not the right person to lead the team. But if the idea of the team is so powerful to you that you are willing to go through any of this to get the chance to do this, read on.

The team has to have a leader (if there is no leader, all sorts of problems can arise – decisions never get made, impossible ideas are the ones that get the most time, dominant personalities drive the discussion even if they don’t have the best ideas. There has to be a leader willing to lead. The leader has to get the most out of everyone one the team, not just the vocal people. The leader has to be able to ask the really vocal members to back off and ask probing questions of the quiet members to get their ideas on the table.)

How many to put on the team? Depends on the leader. If the leader can effectively lead a group of people, then maybe 8 – 10. However, it can be really hard to keep that many people focused. So, if you’re not a great leader, you might want to keep the number down between 4-7. Honestly much more than 6 and it becomes hard to get your ideas heard.

Now to the real question, Who do you put on the team?

Let me first say this, we are all creative. I really believe that. I believe that since we have been made in the image of our creator, we were created to create. It’s one thing that truly does separate us from all other creation. Sure some parts of creation “create” things, but not really. There aren’t many creatures who create outside of their instinct. We do. And in doing so, in using this creativity, we worship our creator.

A Leader: The leader has to be someone who is connected to the senior pastor or leadership team. They have to know what the heart of the sermon/sermon series is and be able to make sure the team has a clear understanding of that and can help lead the team in coming up with ideas that work with that message.

The leader should be both creative and detail oriented. If no one is coming up with any ideas, someone has to create a spark – probably the leader. Along the same lines, if there are a lot of creative ideas, but the detail oriented person(s) are having a hard time figuring out how to get going, the leader will have to step in and help out.

Creative people: they might not ever get anything accomplished, but they think outside the box.

This one seems obvious, but you might hesitate because you don’t want to deal with the people who don’t do anything.Don’t do that. You will get frustrated with them. But don’t write them off. Sure, it seems like they don’t do any work, but are you sure about that? You might not be able to quantify the work they do, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing work. You might not be able to count the number of nails they’ve hammered, but can you count the time they’ve spent dreaming (daydreaming) about these ideas?

Detail oriented people: they might have some creative ideas, but their strength is in their ability to see an idea and come up with the steps needed to accomplish the idea.

This group of people might frustrate you during the brainstorming process because they don’t seem to bring much to the table, but later in that same meeting you will be praising God for them. And as each project comes to a close you will see just how much they bring to the table. These are the people that keep you on time, on target and on budget.

One last question you are probably wondering about: Should the pastor be on the team? Maybe. But, probably not. If your pastor is an extremely creative person, it might be a good thing, but if that’s the case why have the team? Chances are that most people won’t tell the pastor when his idea is a bad idea, even if they really don’t like it. So, having the pastor on the team can actually hamstring the team. But, I wouldn’t say this is the case for every team. Some churches might have a senior pastor who would be great for a team like this, and would help lead or even be the leader for the team. In fact, that would be about the best scenario for having the pastor on the team. If the pastor is leading the team and is the one who is digging ideas out of people, it could be great. If the pastor is merely getting a group of people excited about his/her ideas, again, why have a team?

There is a lot to running one of these teams, it’s not something any of us should just jump in to. But, when they work, it’s worth the effort.

There’s still more to it, more to come…………….eventually…………….

1.) Most people would rather be led than lead.

I was so frustrated with most of the people on Survivor this season. Especially those on Boston Rob’s team. I can’t understand why no one would stand up and try to take the narcissistic leadership belt from him. Rob would tell people what they were doing, and everyone would just do it. I just didn’t get it. If people were going to be basing their votes on who played the game the best, and Rob was the only one playing the game, wouldn’t he win?

2.) It’s easy to use people instead of lead people.

The other thing I noticed that happened this year (as has happened many times in the past) is that it’s easier to use people to accomplish your goal than to lead them to accomplish the best goal. All Rob did was figured out how to get people to do what he wanted and got them to do it. That’s not leadership, that’s manipulation.

Leadership is more work. It’s harder. Much, much harder. There is an aspect of leadership that is sacrificial, sometimes you have to do what’s best for the team, even if it’s not what’s best for you or what you want. People follow that kind of leadership. People eventually sniff out the narcissist and move on. Sure Rob could get people to do what he wanted for 39 days when they were tired and hungry, could he get them to do so for years when they’re not in the same condition? Possibly. Not likely.

So, I would just encourage you to evaluate the way you are doing leadership. Are you leading people or are you simply manipulating people? Sure it can be fun to get people to do what you want them to do. But leading people, caring for people, shepherding people is rewarding. Manipulation is something insecure people do, leadership is for the secure. Manipulation is selfish, leadership is selfless.

Leadership is a higher goal, are you aiming for it?

Fortunately or unfortunately, what we look like while we’re leading worship does have an effect the people we are trying to lead in worship.

In this episode of the podcast, David and Kevin talk about their different views on what we should be striving for when we’re on stage leading worship. These views come across a little differently, but in the end it seems as though they end up with more in common than we though.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We literally talk about everything in this podcast. I’m serious, if it’s going on, we’re talking about it! NBA Playoffs, Usama Bin Laden, Technology, Easter – you name it.

Seriously, we do talk about a lot in this episode, but we do talk more about Easter & do some review of what we did at our churches on Easter and how well it worked for us. So, if you listened to the last podcast, this is a review of what we talked about then. If you haven’t listened to it, you should go check it out!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Now that David  and Kevin have recovered (mostly) from Easter, we’ve got a brand new episode of the podcast for you! In this episode of the podcast, we talk about what we did for Easter. We also talk about a lot of other stuff, loops and how we used them for Easter, other ways to use loops, Reality TV and what not. I have a feeling you’re going to like this episode. I know we had a lot of fun recording it.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Time is of the essence. Not only our time, but the time of the people who are serving in our worship ministries. They don’t have a lot of it, and they’re gracious enough to give their time to support the worship ministries in our churches. So, when they show up for a rehearsal, the responsibility falls on our shoulders to make sure we’re doing our absolute best to use their time wisely & efficiently.

That’s why we’re talking about running a worship band rehearsal. We discuss each of our approaches and talk about some of the advantages to each of them. If you’ve ever experienced running a rehearsal, then this podcast will be a great tool for you!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

I once heard Craig Groeschel say (I think he was quoting someone else) “I will never sacrifice my family on the altar of Ministry.”  That statement hit me hard and stuck with me. That doesn’t make it easy. There are times in worship ministry when we have to have things out of balance in one way or another. There are times when our family will come first, but then there are times when ministry will come first.

With Easter coming, David and Kevin talk about taking care of yourself during the busy seasons of ministry like Easter and Christmas. We also talk about balance. This is an episode you won’t want to miss!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

The good ones help, some more than others.

The bad ones hurt, most of them for a while.

I know how you feel.

Now, before you think I’m going all Whitney Houston on you, let me stop you there. I’m not trying to be sappy or overly emotional. But if I can in some way jump in front a “bullet” for you, (or catch a grenade for you:), I want to do that for you now. And yes, I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve seen that movie – but I did have a sister. (My sister doesn’t account for my knowledge of Bruno Mars….)

If could funnel any of the hurt you might be feeling away from you I’d do it. For that matter, I’d do it for myself too. But the hurt comes, and we have to deal with it, and we have to deal with it in the right way.

We have to deal with the good in the right way too.

We can’t let the hurt drag us down & keep us from giving our best. But we can’t let the good delude our efforts either. We don’t have time to get beaten up. Neither do we have the time to get lazy.

I confess, I’ve done both. When things have gone well, I’ve given less effort. Thought I was good enough to coast on my abilities. When things have hurt, I’ve pouted. I’ve hung my head in shame and bathed my tattered ego in self-pity.

There, I said it.

But what I really want to say is….I BELIEVE!

If no one else believes in you today, I believe in you. Maybe you need to write it on your hand today to remind you. Don’t worry about the ink poisoning thing, (Legal jargon – I can’t be held responsible for ink poisoning….) do what you need to do to get you through the day & the week.

You might be saying, “you don’t know me, how can you possibly know if you believe in me?” Good question, glad you asked. I can say that because I believe God has all of us where we are for a purpose. And as long as God has you where you are, I can say without a doubt that I believe in you.

I can say it because it’s not about you or me. It’s about God. What we do is about God. It’s about lifting Him up to the highest place to draw everyone to Him. Could it be that when we get hurt or when we get proud it’s because it’s become something other than it should be? If this is all about God, and we’re giving Him our best, then we have to leave the results and repercussions up to Him, don’t we?

So, as you head into your week, planning another worship service after having been built up or beaten down, know that I believe in you. You are where you are for a reason. It’s all about God, and God is in control of your situation. So, rest in that. Have peace in that. If no one else believes in you, I do.

(On a final note, if you need to talk to someone, if you need some encouragement email me !)

How do we do it?

First, use tools that help your people prepare ahead of time.

If you listen to our podcast, you’ve heard me rave about Planning Center Online (& here). Give your team members as many different resources as you can come up with. The more tools you give them, the better the chance they will use one of them. Even better, there’s a chance they will use more than one. And if they use more than one, they’ll be better prepared. If you don’t use planning center, then get your team members charts as early as possible, get them recordings if you can – or links to recordings.

One great resource is YouTube. There are a lot of YouTube videos that actually show the different band members how to play their part of the song. There are other great ways & ideas to help people be prepared – too many to talk about here. (Feel free to comment below with what you do!) The idea is, do as much as you can.

Second – Give them the big picture.

Let them hear the whole song if you have a recording. Of course this brings up a philosophical dilemma for some of us. You know who you are. Some of you like using a recording of how someone else has done the song isn’t musical or creative. If you’re not one of those, play them the recording – more than once. I play the recording a time or two, and then usually play the intro again to get everyone started.

If you are one of “those” – talk them through the song. Make sure your chart has as much detail as possible, and that they have the chart in front of them. Then talk them through the song. Tell them where they’re in & where they’re out. Give them rhythms & syncopations.

But don’t talk too long.  The more you talk, the less time the band will have to play. And the more they’re playing, the more they’ll be familiar with the songs. The more reps they get in, the better off they & you will be. They’ll be more confident and make fewer mistakes. That’s why it’s important to put as much information on the chart as you can. It will save you explanation time, and get you to playing music quicker.

Then play through the whole song as a band. Don’t stop to fix stuff yet. Just get through the song. You’ll want to stop and fix the problems, but don’t. Pay attention to the problems and where they were so you can come back & fix them, but don’t stop to fix them yet. If you have a train wreck, stop, tell everyone where you are and get going again. Once you’ve gotten through the song, then you can start to woodshed.

Three – Woodshed.

Now it’s time to focus on the problem spots. Work the Introduction to the song, work through the verse, then work the chorus, the bridge & outro. If someone has a question, let them ask it. Ask for questions here. Do as much as you can to put everyone at ease.

But don’t spend too much time. If you’re doing 5 songs, and you have a two hour rehearsal, you have about 12-15 minutes max to spend on each song. You’ll want to leave yourself time to run through everything at the end, pray, etc.

Four – Work your transitions.

If you’re transitioning straight from one song to the next, you’ll want to have some kind of musical transition to get from the end of one song to the beginning of the next. You don’t want to have to stop & start each time you move to a new song. You want to move between songs as smoothly as possible. When you stop, you might as well be saying “Hey – we just finished a song, and we’re about to start the next one – but we need a minute to change this or that. Okay we’re ready to start….” Because if you don’t, they’re thinking it.

Five – Put it all together.

Run through the whole set, in order, with all your transitions. Don’t stop to fix things. You won’t be able to stop during your service, so if you can do it without stopping now, you’ll do it better in the service. Make sure your tech crew are running through everything as well – not off getting coffee or something.

A few additional notes on leading a rehearsal.

Don’t waste time. Do your best to have everything read before hand. If you can’t have everything ready, hurry. Don’t walk, run.

Be decisive. Listen to your team, especially their creative input (they need to know that you hear them when they make a suggestion – they’re putting themselves out there & we need to honor that) but, you are the one in charge. You have to decide, and you have to decide quick. You’ve had more time with the music/songs. You’re probably more familiar with them than they will be for a long time. You know how the song should feel, so you should be able to decide quickly.

Make sure everyone can hear you. You need to be able to “direct” people, and to direct them they need to be able to hear you.When you’re in the woodshedding phase – you need to stop quickly. If you can’t be heard, you won’t stop quick enough.

Of course there’s more that could be said, but this is long enough already. Feel free to leave your tips in the comments section below.

Photo by: http://denispepin.com

We live in the fastest paced society in history (at least history we know about). And with that pace comes a huge benefit – we get to do some amazing things that wouldn’t have ever been possible in the past. But there are some downfalls. For our youth, a downfall is that our worship ministries aren’t progressing fast enough. As a whole, there’s no way the average worship ministry will keep up with all the new songs our youth watch on YouTube, or with the fast changes in sounds and styles. So, what do we do about that? That’s what we talk about in this episode of the podcast.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Not because I don’t care. I do.

It’s because the bent of the news. All of it. It’s all focused on all the bad stuff that’s happening. One of the top 5 most powerful earthquakes in hundreds of years. Towns have been lost because of the Tsunami. Nuclear reactors are melting down & blowing up. People are getting exposed to radiation. Families are looking for loved ones, and thousands upon thousands have died.

I am not trying to diminish the severity of what has happened and what is still happening. But, there is a lesson we can learn.

When we always broadcast the Worst Case Scenario, people stop listening.

People’s lives are hard. Everyone has something going on in their life that make living life a challenge. We are all surrounded, each day, with challenges that we have to overcome. We have mole hills that people around us are turning into mountains.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing, if right now, amongst the mountains of tragedy we were to hear a heart-warming story. I don’t know what it might be – perhaps a reunion of a family with a lost member. Maybe the nuclear plant isn’t going to meltdown. Or perhaps…..

My point is, if there’s a small lesson we can learn, half a world away – maybe one lesson is that we can be more positive. When there is so much bad going on around us, Japan – The Middle East – Gas Prices, what our people need from us is hope. So he’s my plea to you – be a Best Case Scenario person. Do whatever you can to give people hope.

Who knows, if we give people hope, maybe we too will find hope as well.

However, in our pursuit of these new things, could it be that we’ve gotten rid of some really great things? (I’m not comparing Facebook to a worship service, although it might not be a bad comparison considering the amount of time a lot of us spend on there….he said from on the laptop from his couch on his blog…) Sure contemporary worship is a good thing, and I like it. But the shelf-life of our worship music today is shorter than ever before. And for future generations, it will be even shorter. In fact, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a time in the future, where we go to a worship service and all the songs are new – or we learned all the songs on YouTube before we sang them in church (which is already happening now).

But what about the stuff that the church had been doing up until a few years ago. When things really started changing for the church back in the 60′s and 70′s, it wasn’t just the rerouting of a generation’s preferences, a course was changed that had been set for centuries.

Before I go too far in this, and you start thinking that I’m just another one of those guys who things we all need to turn back time and go back to when things were good, let me reassure you that I’m not. I have no desire to go back to a time when tradition was the important thing, and doing what had always been done was more important than actually connecting with the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

That said, I have been looking back lately. As we go through the week-to-week of preparing worship services, and working up music and what not, I’ve been wondering. As I plan a lot of the same kind of stuff each week, maybe not the same, but for all intents and purposes the same, I’ve been thinking.

Isn’t our God, the Great God that we serve, who has been faithful to us for many generations, who has been faithful to our fathers and our fathers’ fathers, the creator of the universe, the beginning and the end, Isn’t He deserving of more than more of the same?

Isn’t his faithfulness through the generations before us something we can worship Him for. Can’t we worship him because he was the same God for our great-great-great-greats? I think so.

Doesn’t His creativity we see in the world around us give us a clue to the way He would want us to worship Him?

Wouldn’t the one who has always been and will forever be want us to take into account as much as we can in our worship of Him? Wouldn’t He want us to include as much of His story as possible? After all, the whole History of The Church is about Him, it’s about His Story. Sure there are a lot of great people thrown in there, Paul, The councils, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Graham, etc. But they were only living out a part of the grand story of the Kingdom of God.

We too, are living out a part of the grand story of God’s Kingdom. And I think we have a responsibility, not only to live in the moment, filling in status updates – writing blog articles – tweetin’ and what not, but we have a responsibility to those who have gone before us and those who will come after us.

A tremendous legacy was left for us. Yes it was perverted and diluted. But it was still great. And I hope that we will delve deeper into the caverns of the story and pull out as much as we can. I hope that we will look for creative ways to bring this historic elements into our worship services.

It won’t be easy. We can’t just do it because it’s Liturgy (or can we?), we need to make sure it’s understood and meaningful & what not. But it’s good work. It’s work that needs to be done.

Like Ravi Zacharias has said “The only thing worse than Nostalgia is Amnesia.”  We don’t want to be the ones who forgot what had been. We want to be the ones who rediscovered what was and brought it back into the lives of worshippers today.

It won’t happen on it’s own. There isn’t anyone pushing this agenda much. We have to do it, and we have to do it on purpose. But I believe it will be rewarding to do. So, let’s get in there and do it. Let’s get to work looking through the caverns of history to find the gems that we are missing in our services today.

It started with Cher, T-Payne over-used it and everyone since has abused it. We’re talking about Auto-tune. And we’re not necessarily bashing it all together, but we’re talking about some of the effects it has had on us as worship leaders and our ministries.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

You can learn more about Bob by visiting his blog www.worshipmatters.com.

This is a huge topic, and one that we will most certainly come back to in future episodes, but we thought it would be a good start to the topic, and that’s the topic of Arranging a song. It can feel like a daunting task, something that’s out there beyond our reach, and something that we aren’t sure we really even understand. Well Kevin & I try to boil it down to some really basic ideas of arranging to help get you on your feet!

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We all have them. And they play a surprisingly big role in all of our ministries. The questions is, how do we deal with them? That’s what we talk about on this episode of the worship ministry catalyst podcast.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

You might have heard of it, but do you know what it’s about? In this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, David & Kevin are joined by DJ Jackson as they talk about the Vancouver Christmas Project. If you didn’t read the post, you might want to go check that out (here). To get us started, it was an event to unite churches and present the person and story of Jesus to people in our area.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

You might have heard of it, but do you know what it’s about? In this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, David & Kevin are joined by DJ Jackson as they talk about the Vancouver Christmas Project. If you didn’t read the post, you might want to go check that out (here). To get us started, it was an event to unite churches and present the person and story of Jesus to people in our area.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We, as worship pastors – worship leaders and worship team members, are always fighting with commitment.  Some aren’t committed enough, others are on the edge of burn-out. In this episode we talk about one particular aspect of commitment in worship ministries.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

The people who have held on to choir have been viewed as people who just refuse to adapt to the times, clinging tightly to a tradition that has been in a constant state of decline for a while now.

Well, I happen to be one of those who have thought that choir has always been relevant. I’m the old-fashioned guy in most worship circles. At least in the sense of choir. I’ve been a champion for choir in every church I’ve been in, and I will continue to be. There’s a reason….

Music is something that’s supposed to be done with other people. Music is something that’s supposed to be done in community. It’s been a part of our church community for many millennia now. We believe in the power of community, we believe in the power of music, but for some reason we, as a church have been shrinking the size of the group of people who get to be involved in this community in the church.

It seems to me that, we as a church have once again tossed the baby out with the bathwater. In our quest to be on the cutting edge of everything (which no longer seems to be possible, it seems as though most churches who try to be right on the cutting edge can only do so within the church community when in fact they are behind compared to the world’s standards – which is usually the justification for staying on the cutting edge, to keep up with the world…get my drift?) we’ve tossed the things that have great meaning and value because for some reason we thought they were no longer relevant.

Many Christian colleges and Universities have reduced their focus on choir and other community aspects of music because they perceive them to be irrelevant.

For those of you who like to try to keep paces with the world around us, there has never been a time when choir has been more culturally relevant (at least in the last 100 years or so – before that there was a time when the church was driving culture in terms of music & art). With shows like Glee, the Sing off, the choir and others out there, choir is “making a comeback.” (For those of you who have never let choir go, this is a great opportunity to gain some momentum with your choir.)

Sure, the way these groups are doing music might not sound and seem exactly the same, and we may have to adapt some of our ways of doing things to fit in stylistically, but how is that any different than what the church has been doing for the last 30-50 years (and throughout it’s entire history)?

To many people, choir is more work than it’s worth. They don’t feel like they have the training or experience they need to be able to lead the choir effectively, therefore it takes more time than they feel it should and they don’t feel like they’re reaping rewards equivalent to the time they are putting in. Let me just encourage you to stop thinking that way if that’s you.

Do you remember when you first started building your worship band for the new style of worship? I do. I remember times of frustration, feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing, and had no idea how to get to where we were supposed to go. But we all go there didn’t we? The same is true for us now with choir. As many of us look to start up choirs in our churches, we will feel the same thing. We will experience the same frustration. We will have to jump over the same hurdles. But, if we pursue choir with the same tenacity, fervor and dedication we will get over those hurdles and get to a point with our choirs where we feel the rewards outweigh the risks and work.

If you have questions about how to do choir, how to conduct or anything else, contact me. I’d be happy to help you out. I believe in choir. I believe in community and I believe in the power of a group of people doing music together and the effect that can have on people who hear it.

Take advantage of this opportunity. Use the culture we are currently surrounded with to propel your choir to a new level.

For a little inspiration, check out the choir I was once in.

If you want to know a little bit about it, you can find out more information at http://www.vancouverchristmasproject.com.

We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of great guests on the podcast recently, so we thought we’d take this episode to update you on some of what’s been going on with us and to have a little fun with some worship songs.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

There’s only one way to describe this podcast – AWESOME! Seriously. And it has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with Chris Vacher of Worship Rises. In this episode, we get to know Chris, some of his background and get into talking about the Worship Rises movement that is taking place in Canada. You can follow Chris on twitter (@chrisfromcanada) and follow worship rises on twitter as well (@worshiprises). If you missed last week’s episode you’ll want to go check it our here.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

There’s only one way to describe this podcast – AWESOME! Seriously. And it has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with Chris Vacher of Worship Rises. In this episode, we get to know Chris, some of his background and get into talking about the Worship Rises movement that is taking place in Canada. You can follow Chris on twitter (@chrisfromcanada) and follow worship rises on twitter as well (@worshiprises)

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

If you missed the last episode of the podcast, you will, without a doubt want to go check it out here.  We had the awesome pleasure of talking with the guys who are the master-minds behind Planning Center Online! In this episode we finish up this discussion and talk about some of the reservations Kevin has with adopting this awesome technology. I know without a doubt that you will enjoy this conversation.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

It doesn’t take long for us to realize that we may never be like someone else. For me, one of my worship leading heroes is Paul Baloche. I love his songwriting, his humility and his laid-back approach to leading worship. The times I’ve been under his leadership have been some of the most authentic worshipful experiences I’ve had.

So, when I think about how I want to be as a worship leader, I think of Paul, and how if I could do things like him our people would really worship. Have you found yourself doing this?

Well, I have good news for you, it’s not all bad. In fact, I would say that it’s mostly good. I think it’s great to learn from other leaders. However, we can’t let ourselves fall into the trap of judging ourselves against them. Don’t get me wrong, it is good to measure ourselves and see how we’re doing, but we shouldn’t try to gauge our success based on how we perceive the success of a completely different and unique creation of God.

So, here are my three simple tips for leading worship:

1. Be the person God made you to be.

God created you to be you. He has a dream and a vision for who you are supposed to be. He doesn’t want a bunch of cloned worship leaders, He wants the creativity with which he created each and every one of us to be an example for His glory. Have you ever thought about the fact that you, just being who you are when you go up to lead worship, are testifying to God’s creation? It’s true. And God has chosen you to be the person that will lead your body to his throne. Whether you’re the person with the mic or the person with the sticks, God has chosen you.

Have you ever been in a worship experience where you could tell the person leading worship was trying very hard to be someone they are not? I have. It was very hard for me to get over this persons desire to be someone else and get into worship. We don’t want to be that person. God created you because he loves you. Be okay with that. Thrive in that.

2. Be the person your congregation needs you to be.

This might sound like a contradiction, but it’s not. While God has created us to be who we are, He also has a vision for our lives. He has a dream for us and he will use many things and people to lead us to that end. So, we need to be learning from other worship leaders and applying the parts of their style that are consistent with our God-given personality.

Notice that I said, be the person your congregation needs you to be. I did not say, be Paul Baloche or whomever your worship leading hero may be. While we can learn from them, we are not trying to be like them. But we do need to look for ways that we can be a better leader for our congregation. We need to be in touch with the body we are leading and be making adjustments to our style that will help them be more engaged in worship.

It’s a lot like a coach does at half time. You go into the locker room and the coach will begin talking about some of the things that the team will be doing differently to be more effective in the second half. For us, we have that chance every week. Every week, we can review the weekend, get feedback from members of the congregation and make adjustments for the next weekend. Over time, the adjustments will become smaller, but there will always be room for improvement.

3. Don’t get in the way of God’s leading.

In the midst of being ourselves and being the leader the congregation needs us to be, we need to make sure that we don’t get in the way of what God wants to be doing. It’s easy. You practice, you think through the things you would like to say, do and sing differently, and before you know it, the worship set is over and God was merely the music in the restaurant. You knew it was there, but didn’t really pay any attention to it.

Listen to the promptings of the Spirit when you’re leading worship. If you feel led to raise your hands, but you don’t normally do that, do it. If you feel led to sing the chorus again, even though you didn’t practice it that way, do it. If you feel led to ask the congregation to close their eyes, or to kneel, or to pray silently, do it.

God wants to use you to do amazing things. But, just like He has a vision for you and your life, He has a vision for His church. While you are an important part of that, God is still the reason everyone is gathered there. People have come to connect with an eternal God. Make sure you don’t do anything to keep that form happening.

What an awesome privilege it is to share with you this podcast. In this rendition of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, we get the awesome pleasure of talking with the guys who are the master-minds behind Planning Center Online! It was awesome to get to hear the heart for ministry Jeff & Aaron share, and to hear the story of Planning Center Online. I’m sure you’ll enjoy our conversation!

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

In this week’s episode of Worship Ministry Catalyst, David & Kevin are stuck on Double Rainbow juice. We also talk about simple worship songs and simplicity in worship – both in music and in worship services. Instead of complexifying our worship services, maybe what we need to do is simply our services and give people a chance to connect with our Eternal God. We also give a challenge to songwriters to explore topics outside of grace.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you! Connect with us on twitter (@wmcatalyst) and facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.)

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

For a while, I’ve been trying to use my twitter account to get to know some of you on twitter. Which is actually working quite well. It’s been amazing to just get to know a little about a few of you through it. However, I’ve wondered if my twitter username (@lindnerphoto) may have been a hang-up of at the least confusing for some.

So, now, we have a twitter account specifically for Worship Ministry Catalyst where I will be sending tweets about the blog/podcast and trying to build community among us there! So, here ya go, our username is: @wmcatalyst. We’d love to connect with you over there!

You can also connect with us on facebook. We set up a page for you to “like” over there, and also where we can have some discussions. Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.

Of course, we’d love for you to “like” us. But beyond that, we’d love even more to get to know you, chat with you and just be able to share in the journey with you.

So, hope to connect with you soon!

Kevin & David talk about getting an outside perspective on our worship services in the episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast. It’s a great opportunity to see how someone who isn’t a regular attender to your church might view your service!

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

If you missed last week’s podcast, where we got to know Brent, you’ll definitely want to check it out! This week, we dive into some of the things Brent and his church are doing, technologically speaking. This is the second part of our interview with with Brent Hodge of brentinworship.com. If you haven’t met him, you should. You can also check him out on twitter. @inworship. (You can also follow me @lindnerphoto – please!) Brent is a mover and a shaker in the Worship Ministry World. We get to know Brent a little more in this episode and talk about some of the things he does at Table Rock Fellowship and some of the things he just enjoys doing.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

You may also want to become a fan of our page on facebook! Click here to like us. We need your help being liked. Help!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

This week we get the awesome privilege of talking with Brent Hodge of brentinworship.com. If you haven’t met him, you should. You can also check him out on twitter. @inworship. (You can also follow me @lindnerphoto.) Brent is a mover and a shaker in the Worship Ministry World. We get to know Brent a little more in this episode and talk about some of the things he does at Table Rock Fellowship and some of the things he just enjoys doing.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

I know the history.

I know that Jesus taught.

I know that Peter and Paul and others preached.

But why sermons? Why the passive listening? Do we actually learn from sermons anymore? Are that many people’s lives being changed through the power of sermons?

Or could it be, that they were powerful for a time and that time is coming to an end? Could it be that sermons were powerful through the reformation and with revivalists, but that now they’re just what you do at church and no one is willing to bring up the topic of change?

We’ve seen change in other part of the worship service. Music has changed with the times. Some churches have changed the way we take offering, others the way we take communion. Some churches have changed the venue in which we meet and others the venue through which we see the sermon, but how many have changed the sermon?

Sure some have made some changes. A video here. A drama there. A costume here. A song there. But, for the most part and for the majority of the weeks out of the year, the format stays the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily have some other idea for teaching/preaching/sermons (by the way, what’s the point of sermons – to teach?). And I’m not just trying to get more time for the worship guys (though I most certainly wouldn’t be opposed to that). It just seems that, for the most part, with all the change the church has been through the biggest piece of the puzzle remains unchanged. And as culture changes faster than I can type the word change, shouldn’t the biggest portion of our services also be thought through just as carefully as every other slice of the pie?

(Now, I just want to go eat my last piece of birthday apple pie. Maybe pie is the answer….)

If Jesus were to have chosen now to come and show us the way the truth and the life, do you think he’ be preaching sermons? As for me, I don’t know. Jesus’ messages are timeless, transcend all human teaching ability and will never be replaced other than by Jesus himself. But in the time in which Jesus came, that’s what people did. Rabbi’s of the day didn’t have to fight for people’s attention because what else was there? Hanging out with tax collectors?

I just wonder what means of communication Jesus would choose to use in this day and age. Sure it’s kind of a hypothetical question, but from where I sit, it’s a question we need to ask. We may never agree on an answer. We may fail in our attempts to communicate more effectively. But then again, we may become more effective at reaching people for Christ. People who have already heard sermons and found no reason to continue listening.

Let me ask you this, how many people’s lives are being changed (I’m talking real change, not Sunday change) as a result of the sermons that are being preached at your church? If the answer to that question is many, then maybe you don’t need to change anything. Maybe you do. If the answer to that question is few, then maybe you need to change something. Then again, maybe it’s the worship guy’s spiky hair that needs to be changed.

Regardless, in our quest to reach a many people for Christ, let us not leave any stone unturned. The stones you turn may bare the most fertile ground.

And all it needs is a seed.

Just one.

(Chime in! If you have input on this topic, leave your comment below. If you think I’m totally off base, feel free to let me know that you think so! If you have an idea of what sermons should look like today, or what Jesus would do, let us all know!!!)

Ever wondered if you need a degree to be able to lead worship? Do you feel that if you had a degree in music, you’d be better prepared to do your job as a worship leader? If you’ve ever wondered about these questions, this episode of the WMC podcast is for you. Take a listen, you might be surprised.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Well, as I’ve been thinking about our discussion in our most recent episode of the WMC podcast, it seems that part of the issue may be our perception of what summer is. Of course, summer is a time for vacationing. Of course, summer is a time when people get out of town, restore their souls and get some much needed time with family and some even more needed perspective on life.

And as I thought about that, I thought, shouldn’t we be doing the same thing in our worship ministries? Shouldn’t there be a season in our ministry where we give people a break, where we build relationships and where we get perspective? And the answer to that is yes.

In summer, we have the unique opportunity to build momentum in a way that doesn’t happen during other times of the year. Normally we think of building momentum in terms of recruiting & equipping. We think of teaching our congregations new songs and new ways to worship. But, what if momentum during the summer was different?

What if we decided that summer wasn’t going to be about those things, but that it was going to be about what summer seems to be about? What if we decided that instead of beating down doors to have a team on the weekend, we would replace the time we’d spend on that with time spent building relationships with the people who are around? What if we intentionally gave people the weekend off, so they’d be more ready to serve the next time their name is on the list? What if instead of waiting for them to accept or decline their availability, we declined it for them? What if, instead of trying to plow our way through the summer, we took time to reflect on the last year, gain some perspective for the year to come and allow God to speak into our lives for the year to come?

So, my suggestions are simple. 1.) Give people time off during the summer without making them feel guilty for doing so; 2.)Take the time you’d be spending, preparing for the big team & spend it building relationships with people who are around; 3.)Relax, Rest, and gain some perspective. Allow the weekly grind to pass you by, and let God speak into your life for how He wants worship to look at your church this coming fall.

That’s it. It’s that simple. Re-think summer and I think you’ll be able to enjoy it much more. And in doing so, you’ll start off this fall with momentum. You’ll be ready to go. Your Team will be ready to go.

Oh yeah, and take a vacation!

Summer is here in full swing, and if you’re anything like us you’re experiencing a full-blown case of the “summer slump”. And with the slump comes the challenge of keeping yourself in good spirits whilst you try to keep momentum going in your worship ministry. That’s what Kevin & I talk about in this episode of the WMC Podcast.

If you’re a faithful listener to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Click here to add your info to our directory of worship leaders.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

1.) Planning Center Online

Okay, this is what sparked the debate in our last podcast. It’s an extremely useful to, especially if you’re more the artist personality and less of the organized type. If you always feel like you’re behind in scheduling or in keeping in touch with the volunteers you work with, you’ll love it. If you like to plan ahead, it’s great because you can just go to the plan you’re thinking of, ad in an idea or two for that weekend and then when you’re ready to finish the plan – you have it – right there!

There are some other great features to PCO as well. Song & Chart organization, printing songbooks for the weekend, the community where you can see what other churches who use PCO are doing and others. With all that great functionality, it’s extremely simple & easy to use.

2.) Facebook

If you’re still using email & not using facebook, I’ll be praying for you. I pray for Kevin all the time about this. Facebook is such a great tool for ministry. It provides and easy way for you to keep tabs on your worship personnel & what’s going on in their lives without (and I know this sounds bad) having to have a conversation with each one of them every week. I don’t mean that it’s bad to talk to people in person, but who among us has time to talk to every single volunteer every single week? I know I don’t and because of facebook I don’t have to. We have a group for our Worship Arts Members. If nothing else, I can use this group as a list to go & mingle with all our people, but you can also use the group for discussions, announcements & prayer requests.

3.) A Blog

Obviously I think a blog is an important piece of the puzzle. It’s another way to build community among your team members online. You can use it as a teaching platform, you can use it to get feedback on new songs, and other things.

If adding a blog seems like too much, use facebook. You can have a blog within facebook & you can use your group for this kind of stuff too!

4.) An iPod

I’ve done posts about this in the past, and you can go check that out for more info. But there are many great ways to use your ipod as a worship tool. You can use it in rehearsals to listen to new music, you can put a slew of new worship songs on there and then go through them and decide which songs best fit your congregation. You can put your set on there and use it to practice with or learn new songs. There are a lot of great ways to use this as a tool.

It should also be said that the iPhone, iPod touch and Droid add another layer of functionality & usefulness for you as a worship leader. I haven’t been able to afford one yet, but one day I will. With apps like guitar tuners, metronomes, real time analyzers, etc. there are a lot of useful things in there!

5.) You Tube

Warning! Caution! I just want you to beware that not everything on You tube is, shall we say, wholesome. That aside, there are a lot of useful video tutorials on You Tube that members of your worship Team will find useful. Paul Baloche teaching his new songs, or Lincoln Brewster teaching the guitar lick to his new song, and many others doing the same kind of thing. It can save you & your instrumentalists a ton of time.

Well, that’s my list. What’s yours? Comment on this post with your tech tools that you can’t live without!

In this episode the WMC podcast, David & Kevin Jump right in to a discussion on adopting technology. It’s a touch topic for some, especially when you start asking why they haven’t adopted a certain from of tech. It’s a lively discussion that I’m sure you’ll enjoy!

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Simply go to http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email todavid@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

If you missed last week’s episode, you’ll definitely want to go check that out here.

We’re talking with Graham about how to take the songs that you’ve been writing and record a demo of them and then the steps involved in doing a complete recording.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Simply go to http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

This week, we’re talking with Graham Cochrane of www.therecordingrevolution.com. Graham is running an awesome blog with tips, tricks & tutorials for recording in your home studio. Aside from the great content, he’s also been prone to give away on his site, so you’ll definitely want to be a regular visitor The Recording Revolution.

We’re talking with Graham about how to take the songs that you’ve been writing and record a demo of them and then the steps involved in doing a complete recording.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Simply go to http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Yes, You.

The person reading this post.

Asking yourself, why would they want me.

Well, we want you.

Why you? Because we want real people on the podcast.

Worship Ministry Catalyst is a networking resource for ALL worship leaders and ALL Worship Team members.

That means you.

If you live in the Vancouver/Portland Area, come by & we’ll do it live.

If you live anywhere else in the world, we can do it through skype.

We’d love to have you on the podcast to talk about worship ministry in your church, and to learn from you! Send me an email to david @ worshipministrycatalyst.com or fill out the contact form to let us know you’re interested.

It’s kind of natural too.

For a lot of our church musicians, playing to a click track is something they do all the time, they might just not realize it. But, when you’re playing along with a recording of a worship tune, chances are, you’re playing with a click track.

We use the Tama Rhythm Watch. It’s a pretty good metronome for only 90 bucks. It’s not perfect. But you can store presets which is essential for using live. It’s got an output on it, so we run it into our aviom in ear monitors & it’s great.

“That’s great,” you say, “but we don’t have fancy in-ear monitors like you new fangled churches.” That may be so, and there’s nothing wrong with that. (Though, in the future, I’ll talk about the advantages of that, if you don’t already know.) This one, has a little light on it, that your drummer could use. Or, you could give the drummer an ear piece to listen to the metronome. At the very least you ought to consider using one in your rehearsals. It will definitely help sharpen up your performances.

Playing with a metronome will really tighten the band up. I wasn’t a believer before we started trying it & made a commitment to stick to it. But now that we have, it makes a really big difference. Give yourself a few months, and you’ll be wanting to play with videos & loops.

Of course if you go that route, Ableton Live has a click built right in, and it can do other cool things like sync guitar pedals & other MIDI/SMPTE devices.

Below is a good self assessment to see where you are in terms of your ability to play with a click.

The original post is here http://silverlakestudio.com/2010/05/guest-post-are-you-ready-to-record/ .

• Beginner – unable to stay with the click. The playing tempo lopes in and out of time as the player(s) first rush the beat, then compensate by slowing down.

• Advancing beginner – this is where the player is now able to follow the click accurately, but his playing has become stiff and constrained. All the focus is on following the click and not much is left to create a groove or musical feel.

• Accomplished – this is where the player or the band as a whole are able to follow the click precisely while maintaining an infectious and inviting rhythm.

• Advanced – at this level, the player has mastered all aspects of playing with the click and taken it to the level of an advanced skill, or art form. One of the most fascinating tricks I’ve seen studio musicians pull off in this realm is a thing I call the “tempo illusion.” Let’s say there’s a ritard in the middle of the song. By playing ever so slightly behind the click, while gradually playing more softly and using fewer notes and less rhythm –through the course of the ritard, these players create a tempo illusion that sounds exactly like a slowing of the tempo, but the tempo has actually not changed at all. When the click is removed, the listener would swear that the music has slowed down through the “fake” ritard. It’s a fascinating and inspiring thing to watch, and I hope readers might take this as a motivation to work hard on click skills.

Also in this episode we share a little bit of personal news and hit the segement “Slam the Band” once again!

If you missed last weeks’ podcast, I’d highly recommend you go check it out here. In this week’s episode, David and Kevin continue their discussion on songwriting through the book “God Songs.” We are having a great time talking about this book and I’d strongly recommend you pick up a copy of the book and go through it with us!

We’re going to be going through the book God Songs by Paul Baloche & Jimmy & Carol Owens. (If you click on the title, it will take you directly to the store on Paul’s site where you can buy your own copy of the book.) By the way, if you haven’t checked out Paul’s Site: leadworship.com, you should do that. There are tons of great resources there for your worship team.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Simply go to http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.